For a while he lay quiet. When next he opened his e yes his mind was clearer. He was lashed, he saw, to a grid of massive sloping timbers. Between them soughed a wind that knifed at his already partly numbed flesh. He turned his head painfully and realised where he was. Beneath him, a matter of feet away, was racing ice: above and behind him rose the great steering pivot of the Kissing Bitch. He was in the whaler’s forepeak, lashed to the drain hatch on which a hunting vessel stores her fresh-killed meat.
He strained, arching his body, face reddening with effort. The fit left him weak and sick, He closed his eyes again and tried to think.
It was unlikely that Truehelm would let him die the sleep-like Death of the ice, but torture by freezing would undoubtedly form the first stage of the end designed for him. He thought of Shurl, and Timbo, and let his anger build. Rage was necessary, for it meant life. He nurtured it, fanning the red flame to white-hot heat. The heat he forced out through his back and thighs, down to his feet and fingertips. The wind plucked and howled; he frowned, brows knitted, bringing more heat, more life, from the central, wilful part of him, It was a battle that went on through most of what was left of the night.
By dawn - signalled to Skalter, in his racing prison, by the flaring of yellow light from beneath-- the pain in his head had ebbed a little. He lay stiffly on the grating feeling through wrists and shoulders every tremor of the vessel. None knew the Middle Ice better than he: he pursed his lips, mentally unrolling a map. Kissing Bitch, it seemed, had kept up her wild pace: she would be half a day‘s sailing. at most, from his own home port of Abersgalt. Truehelm, of course, would not put in there: to show his face in the greatest of the ice-townships would be to court instant death. To the west of the city for many miles stretched the impassable Abersgalt crevasse; the whaler would undoubtedly swing to the east, skirting Brershill and Fyorsgep, press on to the wild Northern Ice. Somewhere in its locked fastnesses she must have her haven, though he, Skalter, would never see the end of the voyage.
He put the thought from him, concentrated his hole attention on the vessel. Faintly, over the roar and hiss of the giant runners beneath the hull, he could make out the clash and rattle of blocks, slatting of sails, creak and groan of timbers, the thousand noises of an ice ship under sail. Helm orders too reached him, piercing the din, He listened, absorbed. Truehelm had turned to starboard: that, for a venture, was to avoid the broken ice at the foot of the Hill of Heroes, the long crest that guards Abersgalt to the south. He was closer to the city than he had realized. He groaned, wrenching at the nylon cords that held him, but it was useless. The loops gave and stretched, but no strength he could summon would break them,
He made himself be still. Soon, in an hour or less, the ice ship would enter the long, sweeping Valley of Ivory, at this season of the year little travelled. Truehelm, though insolent enough, was choosing his course well. By early evening he would be abreast of Fyorsgep; by nightfall well out on the Northern Ice.
ln time, the expected course correction came. The whaler thundered across a broken scree, checked, lurched once more on to her true heading. Skalter heard the patter of feet on the deck overhead. In these dangerous narrows, Truehelm was crowding on yet more sail,
Sometime in the long afternoon Skalter dozed again. When he woke he was shivering uncontrollably. Not even rage could hold the cold any longer; he had reached the end of his resistance. He thought of Shurl and might have wept, but his eyes, puffy and red-rimmed, denied him even the harsh comfort of tears.
The glow of sunset was infusing the little space in which he lay when he became once more alert, Kissing Bitch had changed course abruptly with a crashing squeal. He frowned, wondering. Another course correction, and another; the ship was jigging and darting, as if pursued. She struck an ice reef, with a shock that wrenched Skalter’s numbed shoulders and back. Helm orders sounded again; then he heard, dimly through the uproar, the panic stricken bellowing of a land whale,
He began cursing steadily, Since time immemorial the flat lands beyond Fyorsgep had been kept by the men of all Eight Cities as a preserve. Here the giant herds came in their Season to breed and gambol, indifferent to the vessels that plied forward and back to Fyorsgep and Abersgalt. Skalter had crossed the Breeding Plain many a time, on his way to or from the Northern Ice, marvelling at the placidity of the huge creatures that thronged them. Were it not for the preserves, the herds might long ago have been thinned to the point of extinction; it was sacrilege and worse to cast a harpoon within forty miles of Fyorsgep Pound, Nonetheless, Truehelm was hunting,
Kissing Bitch killed at nightfall Skalter, still raging, heard the hoarse billowings of the stricken beast, the tearing shriek as the ice anchors were released, drawing the struggling creature to a halt. Orders wee shouted, feet raced overhead, later came the creak and groan of tackles. The first of the catch - blubber for oil fuel, vast dripping steaks of meat - was being hoisted inboard. Skalter writhed futilely. Truehelm would waste no time here and certainty wouldn‘t risk firing his trypots. He’d strip and stow the blubber, the most useful part of the catch, take what flesh he needed, leave the rest for the birds and wandering wolves. It was a vicious, criminal waste.
Kissing Bitch trembled slightly as the first of the blubber chunks were levered down into her hold. Skalter lay eyes closed, conserving what remained of his strength. Closer sounds of activity roused him. There was a groan and creak as the forepeak hatch covers were lifted. Torchlight gleamed, orange and flickering; by its aid he saw the first slabs of meat lowered to the grating beside him. Truehelm, for all his malpractice, ran a tight ship. Deckhands swarmed down the falls of the tackles; in a commendably short time the cargo, for what it was--they had taken, to Skalter’s eye, barely a quarter of the carcass--was stowed, and the hatches were being replaced.
Last of all came Truehelm. He ducked through the bulkhead companion, lamp in hand, a long flensing knife stuck through his belt. He stood awhile brooding down from his great height, watching Skalter as he lay motionless. "Well, my friend," he said finally, "my boast was made good. Truehelm never swerves from any course; in hunting, in love, in hate." He squatted beside Frey, fumbled with the eye guard, raised it briefly to show the mass of deformed gristle behind. "This ye gave me," he said. "But my vengeance ran straight and true. Ye’ll lose y’r own eyes, soon, but they’ll be the last to go. Ye’ll lose a lot else first."
Skalter raised himself slightly, and spat. The other’s face didn’t alter. He drew the knife from his belt, thoughtfully, pushed its point against Skalter’s upper arm. Blood ran instantly, coursing to the beams of the grating. "Ye’ll beg for death," said Truehelm, "while yet y’r tongue remains. Have ye ever seen a man skinned?" The knife moved down, biting like fire. "Think on it, Frey Skalter," said Truehelm. "Think, and pray..." He slammed the knife viciously into the beam, inches from Skalter’s side. It stuck quivering, lamplight moving on the blade. He rose, stared a moment longer, then stooped back through the bulkhead. Skalter heard the clunk as the hatch was dogged shut behind him.
He lay quiet, hearing the sounds of the vessel getting under way. Light, a ghostly nimbus, struck up through the bars of the grating. In the outer world, he guessed, the moon had risen. The glow caught the keen blade of the knife, vibrating now to the movement of the ship.
It was slow, painful work. Skalter’s head swam giddily; between each effort He was forced to rest. The cords gave, sullenly. They would never snap; but they had loosened, they were moving. His knees were bent; his shoulders rested now a foot further down the bars. The pain in his ankles was intense.
His left wrist touched steel. He drew his breath sharply, trying to raise his head. It was still a desperate business. One jolt, one ill-timed lurch, and the knife would tinkle to the ice, taking his last chance with it.
He bit his tongue, and felt a loop of the lashing part.
Unexpectedly,. his hand was free, He grabbed for the knife, sliced the remaining cords. Moments later he was standing, leaning against the bulkhead
while sparks swam and flashed behind his lids.
He wiped his forehead,. hand shaking, pushed the tangled hair back from his eyes. He had won his freedom, and he was armed. He could at least sell his life dearly now, when they came for him.
He knelt, frowned down through the drain hatch at the flashing ice. The grating, he saw, was not a solid thing. Its individual beams, eight feet or more long and correspondingly thick, rested in rabbets cut in the coaming. He could lift them clear readily enough, swing beneath the hull and drop. He listened to the thunder of the runners, and shuddered. That had been his first notion, but it was out of the question. Kissing Bitch, sated, was moving fast again for her haven: if the bilge skids missed him, he would be caught by the great stern runners, smashed to an anonymous pulp on the ice. And in any event, there was Shurl. He couldn’t desert her; if he escaped, he had only too clear a notion of what form Truehelm displeasure would take.
The steering gear moved and squealed. They were nearing the Wild Ice now, a ridged, broken terrain into which few vessels would have ventured with the light of day to guide them. Frey shook his head. Truehelm was holding his course; either he or his steersman was arrogantly confident of his skill.
Skalter pressed his hands against the great smooth column of the steering pivot, and swore. The knife had seemed to offer hope where there was none, but it had been fleeting and false, He was still a prisoner; there was nothing he could do to check Truehelm’s course.
He drew a long breath, staring. Then he moved rapidly round the forepeak, a new light in his eyes. To either side of the little hold, massive knee pieces stiffened the junctures of deck beams with the ribs supporting the vessel’s fibreglass hull. Skalter frowned, touching and groping in the gloom, measuring distances with his eyes. Then he dropped to his knees again, peering. The steering spindles, thicker than his body, connected with the runners themselves by way of a framework like a massive sledge. From the tips of the runners, secondary braces rose to a massive collar, clamped to the spindle at the level of the grating. Skalter glanced up. From the collar forward to the ends of the first deck beam was, as near as he could judge, eight feet.
He set to work feverishly, grabbing the stacked chunks of flesh, flinging them aside. He was bloody and panting by the time he had the first of the hatch timbers free. He raised it, seized the collops of meat; tumbled them through to the ice. As he worked, he prayed that Truehelm kept no good watch astern. His luck held; no alarm was raised.
The second beam was clear. He lifted it, grunting. It was heavy and slippery, stained black with old blood. He laid it beside the first. Another followed, and another. The forepeak was empty by the time he was through, the flesh of the luckless whale strewn along a ten-mile trail south to Fyorsgep. A trail, he thought grimly, that at the least would be easy enough to follow.
He rested for a moment, breathing heavily. Truehelm had doubled his bow lookouts: he heard the calls come clear and high above his head. Kissing Bitch responded, with lurches and crashing. Another call: the helm was brought amidships, then instantly to port. They were into the broken ground already; there was no time to lose.
On the nearest bulkhead hung a coil of nylon line; he grabbed it, lopping the precious stuff indifferently into lengths with which he lashed four of the beams into a single massive joist. He heaved it aside, began on the second. When he had finished, the thing was nearly too heavy to lift. He manhandled it forward, heaved the end onto his shoulder, forced the butt against the first of the knees overhead. It rested neatly in the angle between hull and deck. He raised the inboard end, waiting his chance. The pivot turned, steadied; he dropped the joist cleanly in to the joint between the collar and the bracings of the skids.
He ran back for the other beam. A call from the lookout brought his heart into his mouth, but the course correction was minimal, and to port. The helm centred; he waited, sweating, the timber gripped against his chest. Twice the end of the joist missed engaging by an inch; then the thing slid home. With its fellow it now formed a triangle, the base of which was the deck beam overhead.
Skalter staggered, gripping the bulkhead for support; then he raised an exultant face. "Now, Saskran Truehelm, at last thou art aptly named," he shouted above the wind. "For surely thou steerest the straightest course ever given to man. . ." He flung himself away; lay coiled on the forward decking to await the inevitable.
His vigil was of short duration. He heard the lookouts cry, then cry again, with the shrillness of terror. The pivot moved to starboard, groaned and locked. An uproar of shouting then, the panic-stricken surge of feet across the deck. Up there, Skalter knew, they would be flinging all their strength onto the unresponding wheel. The beams creaked, but their leverage was too great. The ice anchors shrieked; then the whaler’s runners struck rough ground, bounded, crashed again. Splinters flew as the steering gear disintegrated under the shock. For a heart-stopping moment the whole vessel seemed to hang, clear of contact with the ice; then she struck, with a roar like the end of the world,
Skalter struggled up, half-stunned. Round him the blackness was shot with flickering light. The decking was split above his head. Somewhere there was shouting; a man was screaming, another sobbing as if in mortal pain. The wind soughed, over the shattered hull; mingled with it came the rising crackle of flames.
He groped for the broken deck edge, hauled himself up and stared round.
For a moment his brain refused to accept the evidence of his eyes. He was looking, it seemed, up and across a tangled hill of cordage, spars, wildly flogging sails. The hill was the main deck of Kissing Bitch. He screwed his eyes shut, opened them again, and made out above him, dim in the night, the far edge of the crevasse into which she had plunged. Her stern still rested on the lip of ice. Her bowsprit, he saw, had plunged deeply into the crusted snow of the nearer wall; the broken stump still held her firmly, hull bridging the enormous rift. Fires had broken out in a dozen places; oil from spilled lamps dribbled across her deck in runnels of pale flame.
The icy wind had revived him a little. He started crawling grimly up the impossible slope. Here and there figures writhed and moaned, trapped by the tangle of spars. He ignored them, intent on his search.
He found her, by a miracle, huddled where she had been flung against the stump of the mizzen. No time for talk; he took her scruff, bundled her to the vessel’s side. He peered over. Below, vaguely visible against the black-green gloom of the crevasse, ran a narrow ribbon of snow. He pointed, shouting. She seemed to understand what was required of her; she swung her legs across the rail, clumsily, and dropped as limp and unprotesting as a doll. He saw her hit the ice ledge and sprawl.
A voice hailed him, feebly. He turned, pushing himself upright. Truehelm lay on the stained deck, still pinned by the boom that had smashed his hips. His eye rolled, terrified, at Skalter and the encroaching flames.
Just what passed through the Abersgaltian’s mind is difficult to say. Certainly no death is more terrible than death by fire; it means torment to the flesh and the tortures of the Underworld to follow. Skalter stood a moment, frowning, then nodded briefly, and inched his way across the deck. Harpoons lay where they had rolled, tumbled from a bulwark rack. He gathered up three, weighted the heaviest, turned back. Truehelm raised a bloodstained hand, and Skalter smiled.
"Ice Mother take thee, Saskran," he said gently, and cast.
He thumped to the ice beside Shurl, pulled her to her feet. He moved off along the ledge, probing cautiously with the harpoons. Behind him, the heat and glow increased. The fire had reached the stricken vessel’s holds. Orange banners of flame rose into the sky, a beacon visible for miles. The night was filled with the stench of burning blubber. Those of her crew still capable of movement were swarming from Kissing Bitch now. For a time it seemed that they hadn’t seen the ledge; then a shout was raised. Skalter, staring back, set his mouth. A dozen figures were stumbling after him along the narrow path; he saw in their hands the glint of steel.
He pushed the girl beh
ind him, into a crevice of the ice wall, and hefted his remaining weapons. The first of the pursuers closed with him, Skalter presented a harpoon tip to his chest. He gripped it, thrust it aside, and Frey struck with the second shaft. The creature screamed, took the weapon with him over the up of’ the crevasse. The others faltered, came on again. Skalter stabbed a man in the throat, clubbed another, hurled the harpoon at the remainder and fled, still dragging the girl by the waist. Fifty yards on, the ribbon of snow petered to nothing. The pursuers yelled with triumph.
Skalter glared back. The nearest of the attackers was almost on him. He gripped Shurl tightly round the waist, urged her over the edge of the path The two bodies, locked together, plunged into the dark.
In the morning the trader Horn of Plenty, commandeered by the indignant folk of Fyorsgep and following a plainly blazed track, came upon an extraordinary sight. Struck clear across the huge Bravena crevasse, five hundred feet of sullenly gleaming dark-green ice, lay the scorched bones of a great ship. Round her clustered a score of burned and frozen wretches who were glad, perhaps, of the death that came quickly to them. A dozen more survivors, huddled helplessly below the crevasse lip on a narrow ledge of ice, were similarly dispatched; and the party was preparing to leave the scene of death when one of their number, exploring the cleft in search of further victims, was startled by a hail from the depths. The voice boomed eerily, magnified by the sheer ice walls, so that the man fled in haste, convinced some Fire Giant was burrowing to the light, indignant at the invasion of his domain, it was RoIf Skane who finally crawled to the edge, peered over. What he saw sent him yelling for ladders and ropes, and in time Skalter, who had spent some hours digging his way to the surface of the vast snowdrift into which he had plunged, was drawn to the Mother‘s open air. With him came Shurl, intimately bruised and still a little dazed, but far from cold.
So at least the legend was sung, by the Minstrels of Abersgalt and while there are some in the Eight Cities who hold that an Abersgaltian speaking the truth and the melting of the Ice Eternal are events of equal probability, it’s best to conceal such doubts. For the nobility of Abersgalt are proud, and the House of Skalter the proudest of them all,